The festive season of Diwali promises to be bigger & bolder this year

The festive season of Dusshera and Diwali promises to be bigger & bolder this year, as Paytm has fired the first shot, and declared their grand intentions for the season.

Paytm has just announced that Rs 1000 crore would be splurged by them for offering discounts and offers, via their newly launched Paytm Mall ecommerce platform. However, there are two very interesting innovations announced by Paytm, which would be rolled out this year, something which hasn’t been tried before by other ecommerce portals.

Can Paytm overtake Amazon and Flipkart this festive season?

Paytm’s Mega Intentions: Rs 1000 Crore Splurge This Festive Season

As per fresh reports coming in, they have decided to make a grand debut for Paytm Mall this festive season. Rs 1000 crore war chest has been created by Paytm, which would be used for offering massive discounts and offers to their users. This would be Paytm Mall’s first festive season, and they don’t want to leave any stone unturned.

And, the preparations have been done in advance, it seems.

Already 1,000 brand stores and over 15,000 brand-authorised retailers have joined Paytm Mall’s platform, and they are planning to add 5,000 biggest brands and shops before Diwali.

The volume of this massive festive season preparation by them can be gauged from the fact that last year, Rs 250-300 crore were spent by Amazon and Flipkart each last year, during the festive season of Dusshera/Diwali. Hence, Paytm has earmarked an amount which is almost thrice of what Flipkart and Amazon spent last year!

Two Factors Which Makes Paytm Mall Unique

This year, they have decided to extended their festive discounts and offers to offline brands as well. Details are not yet out, but it seems that Paytm will match the online offers with equal or same offline offers as well.

Explaining their strategy, Amit Sinha, COO, Paytm Mall, said, “This festive season, while online retailers will focus on spending money and taking away business from shops in the neighbourhood, we will work with them and bring special offers for consumers to shop from their nearby markets by enabling these shopkeepers with mobile technology,”

Besides, there would be a facility to order online and pick up via offline locations, as an extension of their offline push.

As per some analysts, Paytm can give a solid fight to Amazon/Flipkart/Snapdeal when it comes to electronics and gadgets section, but they can struggle in obtaining market share in apparels and fashion niche.

Paytm aims to churn out $4 billion worth of gross merchandise volume by the end of 2017, and the festive season can be the catalyst which can trigger the achievement.

Onus is now on Amazon and Flipkart to reveal their wild cards regarding their festive day plans.

Mohul keenly observes the nuances of Indian startup world; and tries to demystify the secrets behind Technology, Marketing, Mobile and Internet. He is a Writer by passion, Marketer by choice and Entrepreneur by compulsion. Follow him on Twitter here: @_mohul